Massive MIMO: Bringing the Magic of Asymptotics to Wireless Networks

The use of access points with very many antennas has emerged as a key technology for beyond-4G wireless systems. This is known as massive MIMO (multiple-input multiple-output), very large MIMO, or full-dimensional MIMO. The idea is to capitalize on asymptotic behaviors of random matrices by deploying hundreds of antennas to serve tens of user devices in parallel. With such an excessive number of service antennas, as compared to the number of users, one can achieve strong signal gains by exploiting the large arrays gains offered by coherent beamforming. In addition, there will be little interference because the users’ channels become almost orthogonal and any interference leakage is likely to “disappear” in unused parts of the high-dimensional beam space.

In this talk, we review the basic massive MIMO characteristics and clarify the role that this technology might play in the future wireless evolution. Basic properties around channel acquisition, overhead signaling, asymptotic behaviors, and deployment scenarios are addressed. Moreover, we describe recent research findings on how to exploit the excessive number of service antennas achieve seemingly magic results; almost everything seems to get easier and better when you go large!

Emil Björnson

Emil Björnson received a Master degree in Engineering Mathematics from Lund University, Sweden, in 2007. He received a Ph.D. degree in Telecommunications from the Department of Signal Processing at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden, in 2011. From 2012-2014 he was a joint postdoc at the Alcatel-Lucent Chair on Flexible Radio, Supélec, France, and the Department of Signal Processing at KTH. From 2014, Dr. Björnson is an Assistant Professor at Linköping University, Sweden.

He is the first author of the book “Optimal Resource Allocation in Coordinated Multi-Cell Systems” and has received three best paper awards: IEEE WCNC 2014, IEEE CAMSAP 2011, and WCSP 2009.

A wireless meeting place

Our aim is that Wireless@kth shall be a meeting place for the wireless world. Each year we organize a range of activities such as ”Wireless Friday seminars”, national and international workshops and conferences, partner meetings and networking events.

Examples of recent major events:

2017: Wireless@kth Annual Partner meeting (April 20), : high-profile meeting for wireless and mobile industry R&D leaders and leading academics together. At this meetmeeting the research agenda for the next year is set.

Smaller players/SMEs may also make extensive use of the Wireless@kth meeting place where they can network with other players and stay updated with technology trends. However, they can also participate in seed research projects that have the character of “technical feasibility studies”.

Wireless@kth

KTH is the Royal Institute of Technology. Wireless@kth is a research center in “Mobile Systems for Mobile Services”. That together with researchers at KTH and its industry partners is developing this key field for Sweden/Stockholm.Visit kth.se